Grains
by Lady Ice Phoenix
Summary: Light tries to become more like L, but he doesn't seem to be having much success. An introspective series of short, non sequential pieces about life before and after L, and how Light tries to cope. Rating due to subject matter and possible future content.
1. Particle One: Dim

Disclaimer: In no way, shape or form do I own the rights to the Death Note manga, anime, or any other related properties or characters. I am not making any profit from this, nor do I intend to make any profit from this. It is a work of fiction, and should be treated as such.

* * *

General project note: Please remember that this is a fan work, so at times I may play a little free and easy with the plot. Also, expect some... perhaps not-so-mild out of character moments. The little bits and pieces are added in, generally speaking, as they pop into my head, and so it's more of a series of related but non sequential glimpses at what could have happened if my increasingly strange mind were in charge!

Also note that some portions may not be appropriate for a younger audience. Due to the subject matter of the original work, and possible content within this work, my general recommendation is that **these stories may not be appropriate for individuals under thirteen (13) years of age**. However, I do recognize that this is a publicly accessible resource—still, **parents**, if you're concerned, please police your own kids! Unfortunately, I'm not responsible for their accessing content which you may not feel is appropriate for them. I am writing solely for my own enjoyment and have simply chosen to share some of the contents of my strange mind.

Please note that the above applies to all subsequent entries in this piece.

* * *

**Grains**

(Little Death Note drabbles with no purpose at all, really.)

* * *

Particle One: Dim

--

When he first opens his eyes that day, everything is just a touch too bright, too still.

It takes him a long moment to realize why, at first, but then the moment comes back to him with a stomach-churning certainty.

L is dead.

He recalls the strangely peaceful look on the face of the other man, the one who was older and younger in strange and unpredictable turns, and something about it twists round in his head, wrenches strangely at the inside of his skull.

Light allows himself to breathe out, the sudden silence in that instant jolting him into awareness, and is startled to find that he's sprawled facedown on the bare floor in front of the large view screen. A foot away from his face is a slowly crumbling tower of sugar cubes standing in a sea of gooey detritus and the shards of a bone-white teacup, once patterned with violently purple flowers.

An hour later, when he sits down for breakfast, Misa gasps at the blood oozing down his cheek. Ryuk doesn't say a thing at all, and no one seems to notice when the red-stained sugar cubes disappear into the God's grinning teeth.

Except one, of course, but no one else will listen.

* * *

More to come at some point! Hope you've enjoyed it so far… 

Ice


	2. Particle Two: Drop

Disclaimer: Please see first chapter for disclaimer and relevant project notes.

Warnings: This one might be a little… egh… well, maybe pseudo vampirism? Sorry.

* * *

**Grains**

(Little Death Note drabbles with no purpose at all, really.)

* * *

Particle Two: Drop

--

Light glances up at the boy perched on the arm of the recliner, and uses the arm not shackled to the hunched figure to wipe the trickle of liquid from the corner of his mouth.

When he brings the hand down to look at it, there's a streak of red across the back. Blood, he knows, and brings the hand back up to his mouth to suck it off of his skin before it drips to the white carpet under him.

The taste of it, metallic and oddly sweet, is expected. He's tasted his own blood before, in the days when he hadn't yet learned that intelligence was just another tool, and not meant to be everything one was. So, oddly enough, he misses the bittersweet tang of blood's flavor, and when that on his hand is gone, he steals a bit more from the sting of the place on his lip where L had struck him with the handcuff at his end of the chain.

He savors the taste of L's blood, too, after the pale boy makes one too many snide comments about how willing he is to be chained up and causes Light to give in to the urge to strike him with his own circle of metal. He tastes the red drop when he wrenches his arm down to bow his head in apology, and it's sweeter than his own, less metallic, and he's as distracted by the differences as he is by the fact that it's not at all sane to crave the flavor of anyone's blood.

Light doesn't even stop to think about the considering look L is giving him, or the way that L is watching his rival taste the essence of his life, or even the way that L spends the next three weeks building single-column towers of sugar cubes and not eating a single one.

Four weeks later, L is dead, and the first thing Light chooses to do when the watchers turn away is to very carefully decommission each tower and put the sugar back into the stack of empty, plain white boxes.

The next step is to make cup after cup of terribly strong green tea, and to carefully consume each cube of L's final thoughts.

* * *

Second piece posted on the first day, too! We'll call it a story-warming gift, or something.

Hope you enjoyed!

Ice


	3. Particle Three

Disclaimer: Please see first chapter for disclaimer and relevant project notes.

Warnings: None this time.

* * *

**Grains**

(Little Death Note drabbles with no purpose at all, really.)

* * *

Particle Three 

--

Light sits there, flipping the sugar cube between his fingers, and briefly toys with the idea of building something out of it--the sugar itself glints a little, temptingly. Even just touching it, he knows what it tastes like.

A side benefit of living in a world of commercially processed food, he muses, not noticing the way that he's pinched his own too-pink tongue between his teeth.

He lifts it toward his face, turning it this way and that, examining each angle. Dimly aware of the sudden silence, he lifts it once more into the glare of the light before summarily popping the little cube into his mouth. He lets it sit there on his tongue for a moment, melting particles odd against the skin, before sucking a little air and sugar-sweetened tea through it and rolling to his feet.

"Alright, men, let's work."

* * *

Yeah. Just a little _taste_ this time… 

-Ice


	4. Particle Four: Building Blocks

Disclaimer: Please see first chapter for disclaimer and relevant project notes.

Warnings: Little random, little odd. Came from _my _brain, so it might not make sense.

**

* * *

**

Grains 

(Little Death Note drabbles with no purpose at all, really.)

* * *

Particle Four: Building Blocks 

--

He spends another moment contemplating the boxes... no, cases... of sugar cubes he found in the back of his closet three weeks ago. In actuality, there appear to be at least twelve of them, each a different brand.

Light pauses for a moment before he pulls one of the small boxes from a case and strips the crinkly plastic wrapping off of it. This box of sugar cubes has been in this closet for nearly eight years--he doesn't know that because he put them there.

He knows it because the closet had once been someone else's, in the same way that he knows that the yellow-boxed brand of sugar cubes is best for building towers, and the brand with the green boxes is best for anything to do with bridges--it is the same way he knows that the hard white squares in his hand are the sweetest—and the best for building dizzying spires, impossibly delicate parapets, castles in the air.

He shuts the case, closes the door, and slips the little plain cardboard box of sugar cubes into his jacket pocket.

After a moment Light pauses midturn, his head turning back to the left ever so slightly, in that kind of faint astonishment which no one will ever admit holds more than a trace of guilt. When his eyes follow the movement, however, there is nothing there.

But for just an instant, he wants to believe in that faint, dry chuckle, the amused roll of sharp words, the heavy shadow of something else perched in the odd, delicate white chair.

Light closes the door behind him, and makes a note to turn up the heat when he returns.

* * *

-Ice 


	5. Particle Five: Forgetfulness

Disclaimer: Please see first chapter for disclaimer and relevant project notes.

Warnings: Another of those seemingly useless segues from reality...

**

* * *

**

Grains 

(Little Death Note drabbles with no purpose at all, really.)

* * *

Particle Five: Forgetfulness

--

It starts out innocently enough.

Light isn't really sure how it happens, or why it escalates into something so very, very dangerous. But it starts out innocently enough.

The first time it happens, though, he can almost pass it off as a forgetful moment. He's rushed out the door for dinner with his family, leaving papers and other random things scattered across his desk.

He barely manages to remember to grab his briefcase, much less remember to allow enough time to pick up Sayu's gift from the jewelry shop. When he pulls up and slips out of the car, he freezes, and then shakes his head. It's much too late to go back now—his mother is already holding the door open and smiling at him, and so he has no other choice but to smile and step forward into her embrace.

It's after dinner and before cake, and Light is halfway through apologizing to Sayu and digging in his briefcase for cash to tide her over until he has a chance to drop by the jewelry shop, when his hand comes up from one of the interior pockets with a cunningly wrapped little parcel.

He barely manages to divert the shocked look on his face when the tag reads "Sayu" in distressingly familiar handwriting, and shoves the "Thank you for your purchase!" receipt into his pocket.

Ryuk later comments that the sticky red dots on the receipt taste like apples, but Light isn't really listening, his mind whirling in dizzying patterns. He's wondering, distantly, if he's lapsed into some sort of strange psychotic episode where he's begun to live L's life instead of his own.

_The first time it happens, he can almost pass it off as a forgetful moment._

Except that when he gets home, the reminder note on his bedside table has been all but obliterated by a strange, amusingly vampire-fanged smiley face with red taffy eyes and candy corn teeth.

Light averts his eyes, guiltily, and turns the heater up a few degrees. He slips into bed, and refuses to open his eyes again until morning.

Because this time, he's not so sure that he's imagining the laughing shadow in the corner.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed! Next one will be up soon...

Ice


	6. Interlude One: Dissolve

Disclaimer: Please see first chapter for disclaimer and relevant project notes.

Warnings: General strangeness and potentially disturbing content, random mucking about with the Death Note universe...

**

* * *

**

Grains

(Little Death Note drabbles with no purpose at all, really.)

* * *

**Interlude One: Dissolve**

Sometimes, even Sayu doesn't understand her brother.

She watches him sometimes, when he thinks she isn't paying attention, her eyes bright in the reflection of the TV. He never really says much while he sits there, still, with one of the few recreational books he brings home open on his lap, his gaze avid and focused.

Sayu's never seen him out with friends, and the few times he's gone for an outing with her, he's had to be cajoled out of his arguments that he needs to study.

Sometimes, Sayu worries about what will happen to him, this strange, quiet brother of hers... whether or not he really sees them, and whether or not the near-silent movements and the swift wit are really good for him, or if they are all she has left of someone far beyond her reach. Sayu, of course, never mentions a single word of this to Light.

Still, she's never been entirely certain how to act around him. In some ways--in academic and professional ways--he's brilliantly certain, confident, amazingly willing to learn and to teach. If not for his total devotion to the NPA and to their father's work, Sayu thinks that he would be an amazing teacher. The girls could fawn over him, and the boys could be jealous but grudgingly respectful. Other than the fact that he would certainly expect his students to keep up with him, to follow his convoluted processes and the startling connections he draws between subjects and moments, and the rambling discourses about the million instances of something strange which are totally integral to his thought process, he would be perfect.

Sometimes, Sayu wonders what would happen if her entire family were gone, if they were dead, if they were to disappear, and is wracked by a fear so deep and cold that it wrenches tears from her in great, awful sobs. She never tells anyone how much those moments hurt, because she's never really certain what the difference is between the places where the pain ends and where it begins.

It leaves her feeling unspeakably raw inside for days afterwards, and it's the times like this when she thinks that if she had a choice to keep them forever, she would be more than willing to die for them. When she voices this to Light, he laughs, and she loves her brother more than anything for the fact that he tells her that it's so much harder to live for someone than to die for them.

In other ways, she is terrified for him.

He can be painfully shy at times, reclusive, silently and almost unnoticeably depressed. Light doesn't always show how he feels, or what's been done against him, but Sayu will always very well remember him coming in through the back door of the house one night, blood trickling down his face. She doesn't say anything when he passes her in the hall that night, one hand brushing the top of her head, and the next morning, she learns that his wrist and the fingers of that hand are broken, and that he will longer be playing tennis.

The tone in her mother's voice says that it's something worse than that, but Sayu never asks her. All she can do is go up to his room every night after school, and wait until the emptiness in his eyes fades away, unlike the thin pink lines which begin to appear down the insides of his wrists.

Still, Sayu never asks her mother. When she asks Light about it, he answers with a soft, almost nonexistent smile and simply brushes those pained fingers across her head. Eventually, Sayu learns that the pain in his eyes is because she shies away, rather than the injury, and lets the warmth of the shaking hand seep through her hair.

Sometimes, he terrifies her, and it's almost worse that she doesn't know why it seems that everything he is could even now be coming apart. Except that she hopes more than anything that she'll never have to live for him, because she doesn't know how to be so very, very fragile.

_When_

_will_

_you _

_dissolve?_

* * *

There you go-- bit of a wait this time, but here is our first interlude...

Ice


	7. Particle Seven: Reckless

Disclaimer: Please see first chapter for disclaimer and relevant project notes.

Warnings: General strangeness and potentially disturbing content, random mucking about with the Death Note universe. AU, obviously, and possibly spoilers for the bits that aren't.

* * *

**Grains**

(Little Death Note drabbles with no purpose at all, really.)

* * *

Particle Seven: Reckless

--

The second time it happens, he's doing something he shouldn't be doing.

Even Light, unconcerned as he may seem, knows exactly why he shouldn't be where he is in that moment, standing above a strange assembly of criminals being moved into protective custody and moving his fingers ever so slightly inside of his pocket. This is an unnecessary danger, but he allows himself the tiniest bit of a smile.

First, it's the mass murderer; next, the kidnapper who did truly unspeakable things to his victims... their deaths will be as harsh as he can make them. There's plenty of time for him to be out of reach.

But then the last person to be killed that day is looking up at him, a viciously righteous look on his face, and there is something is his expression--something about the look in his eyes--which sets alarm bells ringing in Light's mind.

This one, somehow--he knows.

Light leans forward against the railing, removing his hands from his pocket, and waits for the man to meet his eyes. When he looks up at last, Light smiles, oh-so-gently... but he does not expect the smile to be returned. It's a sleek, dangerous kind of smile, the man's eyes half hooded and glinting sharply.

Light freezes, his knees locking, his breath fleeing his body as though he's been stabbed in the chest. The room, all steel and white lights, pitches dizzily for an instant, and Light is rather irrationally certain that he's about to fly forward over the railing--and suddenly, suddenly--!

There is a rough, cuttingly cold yank at his throat as his leg punches through the mesh of the flooring and it splits beneath him, wrenching the railing towards the concrete below. Harsh metal edges rake up his leg and down again, accompanied by crushing pressure across his ribs, and he manages to gather just enough sanity to make a grab at the narrow ledge of ragged steel yet clinging to the wall. Coming to a jarring halt, Light dangles for a moment from his bloodied fingers before dragging himself a little further forward.

Eventually, he's far enough forward that he can roll onto his back and stare at the ceiling for a long moment.

He doesn't know that the twisted metal has crushed any recognizable trace of the man with the knowing eyes, and he only vaguely notes the fact that Ryuk is destroying the piece of paper soaked in apple-flavored red drops in that wicked grin of his. Light doesn't notice that there's another name scrawled on the paper now, or that the cold chill and the wavering in his vision are from anything other than shock.

It's not until two days later that he looks in the mirror and sees a dark, splay-fingered bruise mark across his chest and the distinctly marked flesh around his throat, and wonders what that faint whiff of strawberries and spun sugar really meant.

* * *

Another chapter, finally.

Ice.


End file.
